While it is true tht Singapore has a free hand in selecting
radar (unike say Taiwan) , but EMPAR may not be suitable, as the
Horizon is 6,700 tons. The EMPAR may be quite large, and that would
have an adverse effect on stability by raising the centre of
gravity. That is the reason why British developed the Spectar for
smaller vessels (as compared their SAMPSON) and Dutch developed
SEAPAR (as compared their APAR) for smaller vessels.
But of course, it is difficult to say whether Herakles is better
than Arabel. Herakles work on S-band, while Arabel work on
X-band.
Notice that our Scanter is X-band.
It is like this:
For Dutch, APAR is X-band, so they put search radar with longer
wavelength.
For SIngapore, Herakles is S-band, Scanter is X-band for surface
search.
Because X-band shorter wavelength not suitable for long range
search, but needed for guidance of american SAMs.
For us, it is the opposite, because we don't use american SAMs, but
use ASTER which is active-homing (self-guided in terminal
phase).
But then we want good resolution for surface search to fulfil task
of sea-patrol (ability to identify fishing boats from naval ship)
so we use X-band surface search by Terma Scanter 2001.
